Has anyone experimented with creating a hybrid approach that uses both lightweight Node.js browser automation tools like Puppeteer or Playwright alongside Selenium WebDriver for web app testing?
I’m really interested in Node.js automation libraries because they run much quicker and use less resources compared to launching full browsers through Selenium. But I’ve noticed that some of these lightweight tools struggle with complex JavaScript rendering and dynamic content.
Would it make sense to create a fallback system where you start with the faster Node.js tool, and then switch to Selenium when the page doesn’t load properly? The tricky part would be detecting when the lightweight tool fails and then handling the delay while Selenium starts up.
Also wondering what other good Node.js browser automation options exist beyond the popular ones? I’m mainly focused on accurate page rendering capabilities. Do you think these lightweight tools will eventually become powerful enough to replace Selenium completely?
We tried this hybrid approach six months ago and scrapped it after a few weeks. The debugging was a nightmare - when tests failed, you couldn’t tell if it was the lightweight tool, the handoff logic, or Selenium that broke. Modern Playwright with proper retry logic solved our dynamic content issues without needing Selenium backup. We tweaked wait strategies and used network idle detection instead of fixed timeouts. The performance gains weren’t worth the maintenance headache. If you’re determined to try it, use Docker containers to keep both tools ready - otherwise Selenium startup delays will wreck your test times.
I built something like this at my last job. The hybrid approach works, but watch out for session management and keeping state consistent between tools. Detecting failures was the biggest pain - timeouts worked okay, but pages sometimes loaded halfway and screwed everything up. For alternatives, Apify SDK worked well for some stuff, though it’s not as popular. Starting with Puppeteer saved us enough resources to make the complexity worth it, especially running tests at scale. But managing two automation stacks got pretty annoying over time. One heads up - modern Selenium Grid is way faster now, so the speed boost might not be as big as you think depending on what you’re doing.
i totally get what ur saying! but yeah, switching tools can be a pain. maybe try playwrght, it’s been improving with dynamic stuff lately, could save u from the hassle of mixing with selenium.